NMR studies of molecules dissolved in a solvent composed of varying proportions of miscible liquid crystals of positive and negative diamagnetic anisotropy showed an unexpected discontinuity in the observed dipolar splittings as a function of solvent composition. The phenomenon is being exploited in obtaining NMR parameters such as chemical shift anisotropy and provides insight into a possible liquid crystal phase transition. NMR spin-lattic relaxation measurements of iron-57 in t-butylferrocene as a function of frequency showed that relaxation via chemical shift anisotropy is the principal relaxation mechanism. Iron- cobalt hybrid hemoglobins have been used to show, via NMR studies of carbon-13 enriched CO bound to the iron hemes, that complexation of oxygen results in a structural change localized near the hemes of the a subunits, not the B subunits.